The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-10
DIXIES POET-PRIEST.
FATHER RYAN, THE SWEET SINGER
OF THE SOUTH.

1GoAS 4s6ou4 HIS OudppISClaJoQ
Genius - Extracts From His Pen -.
Verses That Can Never Be Forgotten.
From, the Ne,o York star.
When I arrived in Baltimore one Septem-
Der morning to take charge of a periodical
published by the same house that printed
Father Abram ]. Ryan's poems, l was
asked, before l climbed up from the first
floor to my office, if had ever met Father
Ryan, the famous poet-priest of the South.
I had to say no. Although Father Ryan
had lived not sixty miles from where did
in the South, had never seen him. went
UP the steps quickly with the keen expecta-
ton of finding before me the ideal of my
youth. The office had sufficient room for
two desks with chairs and STOOL The
other desk was occupied by my local asso-
ciate, and my chair, the editorial tripod of
the Jupiter Toneus | proposed to be, was
comfortably filled by the portly form of a
stout gentleman with florid face, who
greeted me as though I were an intruder
upon his privacy.
of those papers he cared to examine, and
had turned the local journals inside out
Fortunately, suppose, he had not directed
his attention to the pile of letters on the
desk, else he might have opened them also
He had deep cigar box before him, and
when he opened the lid he extracted there
from a glass which contained a milky sub
stance with gold tint upon it, and besides
keeping the office boy busy replenishing this
vessel from Mullins" he frequently APP
plied himself to his gripSack under the desk
which contained what looked nightly like
The pocket TASKS we used to carry when
was harum-scarum youngster. l had to
DO my editing that morning sitting on a
stool and writing on the edge of the desk
whenever the printers devil called for copy,
or handed in proof.
/ read and wrote away, clipping out
scrap occasionally when thought it might
suit me, and all the while Father Ryan
talked. 1t was the only time l ever saw
him, and / am informed that he seldom
talked to any one However that is, he
talked to me incessantly for three or four
hours; had only to throw in a word now
and then to keep him going, and then to
write and read ahead while he continued to
talk: for can work and listen at the same
time, having learned the trick from report
ing, | suppose And such beautiful and
eloquent language, such novel and startling
themes, such strange fancies, such odd bits
of wisdom he poured forth in those few
hours were enough to last man for life
time.
He struck me as altogether an abnormal
genius, with character like that of Edgar
Allen Poe, tickle bnt profound, with the
gems of unimagined oriental wealth buried
in his heart, but without the industry to
dig them up, to polish their facets, and to
offer them for sale in the busy and often
sceptical mart of the world. If he had put
himself into the hands of any thorough
business man, and had undertaken lecture
tour of the South at any period before his
death, he would have coined money by the
thousands. But. so he secured his own sub
sistence, he cared little for money, except as
he could devote it to charitable objects. He
knew very well that the Southern people
fairly worshiped him, but he had no desire
to secure from them the tribute of their
hard-earned dollars for his own glory and
expenditure. All his lectures were under
taken for religious purposes, and were gen
orally almost missions.
1t was noticed at the time that during his
sojourn in the eastern cities he could send
but little money to the discalced Carmelites
of New Orleans, in whose interest his last
trip was undertaken, while, as he proceeded
further west, the checks became of more re-
spectacle proportions. This has been as
cribed by friend of mine to the greater
astuteness of the eastern priests on the one
hand-in arranging to have most of the
profits left for their churches-and to the
greater straightforwardness of the western
priests ON the other hand
On the occasion of our meeting Father
Ryan's simplicity of life was sharply illus
trated. He had procured a slice of cheese
and a few soda biscuits, which he was slowly
munching. l was staying then at the Car
rollton Hotel, just across the street, and of
course asked him to dinner when the hour
for that meal arrived.
II don't eat anything except this" he an
swered, pointing to the slim diet before him.
But don't let me detain you, and don't
bother about me- / seldom eat as much as
you have seen me do"
When l returned from dinner Father
Ryan tarried very little longer He sud
denly arose from his seat nearly overturn-
ing the absorbed local editor, and said that
he was going to st. Louis and that it was
about time to catch his train. Thus he left
me, after giving me store of facts and
fancies which lasted many day. In April
of last year he reached Bethlehem KY, and
In the monastery of the kind Benedictine
monks he breathed his last on April g.
He was gone forever from the shadows
and disappointments of this harsh existence
the kind, the bountiful, the good. Des-
pite his faults, which were all upon the
surface, Fathe Ryan was a noble man. He
never shirked the most arduous task that
was put upon bis shoulders. Naturally
consumptive from his youth, he had been
commanded by his physicians to drink, and
of his existence. Better have let him die in
the picturesque mournfulness of his youth
than to have preserved the wreck which he
speedily became. The pale, youthful priest
who wrote poetry which charmed all hearts,
who started the Banner of the South with
every prospect of success, soon became the
wreck as | saw him, with every hope of
success gone, with all his money sunk in a
journal which languished into death when
he had to leave it, with his very living as a
minister taken from him, and turned adrift
to forage where he could. Yet even this
battered hulk contained within it a soul of
high honor, of noble endeavor, and of po-
etc Imagination which the misfortunes of
his life could not totally extinguish.
suppose there are more anecdotes about
Father Ryan afloat in the South than about
any other public man of the past, with the
exception of Gen. Robert Toombs. He was
to the last degree eccentric. He would
never say anything about his early life.
Where he was born, and when, are disputed
points. Some mysterious gloom seems TO
have fallen upon him in his youth, judging
from several Of his poems, which appear to
be somewhat photographed. Any one
who ever met Father Ryan and conversed
with him will recognize the likeness in these
lines:
The inner self he guarded from approach;